EHP exceptions - government scraps "genuinely for sale" proposal

The government has listened to the representations made by the Empty Homes Network and other organisations and decided that homes that are "genuinely for sale or rent" should not be included in the exceptions from the Empty Homes Premium. The Empty Homes Network argued strongly that such an exception was neither practical nor justified on policy grounds, given that an owner would have had 2 years in which to bring the empty home back into use. This decision is welcome both for immediate practical reasons and because it shows that government does listen to consultatoin. The government does also seem to have taken on board our comment that if there are circumstances in which a property might remain empty after two years despite an owner's best efforts to bring into occupation it could only be because of a broken property market: they are proposing to introduce guidelines to local authorities that woudl indicate the characteristics of property markets where the impositiion of the Empty Homes Premium might be inappropriate. Such guidelines look unlikely to have statutory force. The government's response to the consultation is in our Information Library here. Our consultation response can be found in the Library here.